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Time to end our dependence on coal

The Canberra Times

The crux of climate change mitigation efforts has always been that they involve painful economic trade-offs. That fact was underlined, again, in a Climate Change Commission report released on Monday.

It suggests most of Australia's known coal, oil and gas reserves will have to remain untapped if global warming is to be kept below two degrees. A rise of more than that will trigger increasingly severe weather events like heatwaves, bushfires, droughts and heavy rainfall.

But Australia's sizeable coal reserves (which are being mined, exported and burned at record rates) make us a major greenhouse gas emitter.

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According to the report, the nation's fossil fuel resources represent the equivalent of 51 billion tonnes of greenhouse gases, about one-twelfth of the world's "carbon budget'' of about 600 billion tonnes. This is the amount scientists estimate can be burnt by 2050 if temperature rises are to be kept to two degrees or below.

Coal is worth billions of dollars to the Australian economy, and attempts to limit its exploitation in any significant way would not be well received, either by governments, mining companies or economists. Opposition climate change spokesman Greg Hunt has already made clear that a future Coalition government would "not support shutting down Australia's major export industry''. It's a view that Labor shares, too - though the two parties diverge somewhat in their approach to mitigations.

As the Climate Change Commission report points out, however, unchecked greenhouse gas emissions will have an environmental and an economic impact in Australia. Agriculture and tourism are at most risk, but the report suggest that mining too will not escape the consequences. A debate about reining in coal exports now in order to limit the longer-term consequences of global warming might seem a sensible course of action. Realistically, however, the chances of that occurring are remote.

So long has the coal train been running in Australia - and so much money has it generated - that slowing it will not be as easy. Governments, here and elsewhere, are making contingency plans, but in the view of most climate scientists, these are not occurring with anything like the urgency that's required.

The danger for Australia, underlined by this report, is that the longer we ignore the warning signs about our over-dependence on coal as a revenue earner, the harder the landing will be.

Zero tolerance for violence

The divide between the law as it is applied in the public domain and as it is applied in the domestic sphere has been brought into sharp focus this week by an incident involving Nigella Lawson and her husband Charles Saatchi. Pictures showing Saatchi with his hand around his wife's throat as they sat in a Mayfair restaurant were published in Britain on Sunday.

Lawson's fame as a TV chef has ensured that the alleged assault has become a cause celebre, not just in England but around the world.

It is possible Lawson may say nothing and will decline to speak out against her husband. However because the alleged assault was recorded by a witness, charges may not depend on the victim lodging a complaint. It may prove difficult for Saatchi to deny the events given he is identified in the photographs.

Interestingly, much of the social media chatter on the subject says it is a matter for the couple and not the police. If anything, however, this incident shows that violence is violence no matter where it happens and should never be tolerated even if the victim does not make a complaint.